I.


TO SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

_May_ 27, 1796.

Dear Coleridge,--Make yourself perfectly easy about May. I paid his bill
when I sent your clothes. I was flush of money, and am so still to all
the purposes of a single life; so give yourself no further concern about
it. The money would be superfluous to me if I had it.

When Southey becomes as modest as his predecessor, Milton, and publishes
his Epics in duodecimo, I will read 'em; a guinea a book is somewhat
exorbitant, nor have I the opportunity of borrowing the work. The
extracts from it in the "Monthly Review," and the short passages in your
"Watchman," seem to me much superior to anything in his partnership
account with Lovell. [1] Your poems I shall procure forthwith.

There were noble lines in what you inserted in one of your numbers from
"Religious Musings," but I thought them elaborate. I am somewhat glad
you have given up that paper; it must have been dry, unprofitable, and
of dissonant mood to your disposition. I wish you success in all your
undertakings, and am glad to hear you are employed about the "Evidences
of Religion." There is need of multiplying such books a hundred-fold in
this philosophical age, to _prevent_ converts to atheism, for they seem
too tough disputants to meddle with afterwards....